


shadows in motion

by minuanos



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: (nothing graphic or serious but it's there), Angst, Anxiety, Dreams and Nightmares, Drug Use, Drug Withdrawal, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Post-Episode: s02e15 Revelations, Spencer Reid Needs a Hug, Suicide mention, emily dickinson - Freeform, further tags to be added when I'm less tired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:54:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27457549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minuanos/pseuds/minuanos
Summary: Dear Mom,We got back from Georgia last night—Dear Mom,I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately—Dear Mom,Emily Dickinson once wrote about being haunted by a grave.—(Georgia happens, and it keeps happening even when it’s over.)
Comments: 39
Kudos: 115





	1. the hour of lead

**Author's Note:**

> hey hello hi. some housekeeping: all the poems are taken from the anthology edited by cristanne miller, and there are frankly too many to list individually. most of them can be found [here](https://poets.org/poems/emily-dickinson), but feel free to ask if you're curious about a particular line. 
> 
> this fic has quite a lot of ~creative~ formatting, especially in this first section, so if you're reading this on a phone screen it might work better if you turn it sideways. I know. I'm sorry. please stick around for the rest, when it comes.
> 
> title from [noah gundersen.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLTYSHJ6kiA&list=OLAK5uy_nt5pQ5GLXsd1XV8faIyy5Hv_gwVP-2koE&index=9)

_One need not be a Chamber – to be Haunted –  
One need not be a House –  
The Brain – has Corridors surpassing  
Material Place – _

_—_

_Dear Mom,_

_We got back from Georgia last night_

_—_

_Dear Mom,_

_I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately_

_—_

_Dear Mom,_

_Emily Dickinson once wrote about being haunted by a grave._

_—_

Georgia happens.

Georgia happens, and it keeps happening even when it’s over.

He’s used to a memory that does exceptional things, but this time his recollection of the actual events is misshapen and blurred by concussion and drugs, and all he really remembers is the feeling of it. He relives every touch over and over as if it’s etched into his skin, goes to fasten his shirt cuffs and feels the bite of restraints on his wrists, sits down to eat with the struts of a chair at his back. His hands itch, a constant ghost of leaf litter and grave dirt under his nails. He scrubs until his fingers are cracked and bleeding, and the prickling spreads up his arms and down his spine.

(Emily Dickinson once wrote about being haunted by a grave. She doesn’t specify whether it’s her own or someone else’s, but either way it’s there, and she can’t shake it, no matter what she does. She travels, goes somewhere entirely new, and there it is, laid out on her bed when she tries to sleep).

Spencer wakes up with _I don’t want it I don’t want it please I don’t want it_ pouring from his lips like a prayer, and realises it’s a lie.

—

_I waked, to find it first awake –  
I rose – it followed me –  
I tried to drop it in the Crowd –  
To lose it in the Sea –_

_In Cups of artificial Drowse  
To steep its shape away –  
The Grave – was finished – but the Spade  
Remained in Memory_

_—_

He takes the drugs and the world tilts

everything slipping sideways and away,

but he can hold his focus for the things that matter:

the case report

written while he’s high

proofread on the comedown

the psych evals

researched and practiced

show just enough damage to

avoid suspicion

and looking Hotch in the eye

promising he’s ready to come back to work

he can handle it

he can take it,

and the rest slips away,

drifts like snow

into a hazy pile of silver-tinged dreams.

_—_

_Dear Mom,_

_Everything is so carefully placed. She uses these rhyme schemes and metres, holds the words up to them like a rule, and it’s almost predictable. Almost, but not quite. Look, here:_

It was not Death, for I stood up,  
And all the Dead, lie down—  
It was not Night, for all the Bells  
Put out their tongues, for Noon.

_It’s so neatly set out. Monosyllables, iambic lines, rhyming on the two and four; no wonder that sing-song rhythm just falls right into place in your mind, like it's already supposed to be there, like you've know it all along. It's almost predictable, almost familiar, almost easy to skim over and ignore, and what fascinates me in it is the almost. It's there in the gap in the second line; that little hesitation that forces you to take a breath and wonder what’s missing. It’s brilliant, because according to poetic form, there’s nothing missing. The rhythmic pattern is complete. She’s just not telling us everything._

_Emily Dickinson also wrote, “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant—“._

_Sometimes I feel like reading poetry is a form of profiling._

_—_

By the time the team realise something’s going on,

attempts at gentleness jarring

with his own desperate discomfort

he’s already pushing them away.

Maybe they know for sure

maybe it’s just suspicion

it doesn’t matter either way.

If they know, he loses his job.

If he loses his job, he loses his friends. 

If he lies to his friends, he’ll lose them anyway.

He can’t imagine they’ll want to know him _after_.

_What the hell was that?_

He does the math,

ends up in the negatives every time.

So he’s a jerk to Prentiss

_you don’t really know  
what you’re talking about_

brushes off JJ’s soft concern

_do you even sleep,  
spence? you look tired_

Morgan’s jokes

_of the single life? bet I can find  
you someone pretty_

every single one of Garcia’s invitations.

_boy wonder! it’s been too long  
since our last movie night_

Gideon and Hotch watch him

like twin hawks, and nobody

says anything.

He works the cases

files the case reports

shows up and leaves

dead on time

and for a while

it’s enough.

Here’s the thing.

But here’s the thing.

Here’s the goddamn thing,

everywhere and inescapable.

The drugs couldn’t stop Hankel abusing his son

and they don’t stop the memories either

just distance them

the shed

the grave

the screens

all seeping out of his dreams

again and again and again

again and again and again

a stuck cassette of someone else’s memories.

_It was not Death, for I stood up,  
And all the Dead, lie down—_

Morgan is talking to him about empathy

_And yet, it tasted, like them all,  
The figures I have seen_

and he doesn’t have the words to explain

_Set orderly for burial  
Reminded me of mine. _

how it goes beyond that

because this is different,

 _he’s_ different,

ever since Georgia

he’s been cracking and fracturing

into a litany of difference

he’s

a profiler, a victim, a secret and a solution

a needle and a bottle, a rolled-up shirtsleeve,

a cuff fastened tight, he’s asleep, he’s awake,

he’s a wake, the aftermath of it all,

a body in a forest and a dead man walking,

dirt in a shallow grave, a scream in a shed,

a gaunt face in a Quantico bathroom,

staring into the mirror until the lights go out.

—

_Dear Mom,_

_It’s been a weird few weeks. I’ve been thinking a lot about how I ended up here, doing what I do— for a while I was wondering what would happen if I stopped, tried to find something different. I’ve never really existed as an adult without the BAU around me, and I always thought that was okay, because I’m good here. I’m good at what I do, and it was good for me. Until now, I never thought that if I had the chance to make the choices all over again I’d pick any differently, but recently I’ve been thinking that I maybe didn’t have the choices at all. I don’t really believe in fate, but maybe some things are inevitable. Maybe some things come to pass no matter what path you take._

_Ethan in New Orleans, playing jazz and telling me what nobody else seems to know. We both wanted the same thing, back at the start of it all._

_I think he's happy, now._

_I don't know what that makes me._

_—_

The conversation with Gideon is a watershed.

He’s too far gone to tell whether it’s a lifeline or the final straw, but it's enough either way.

Something has to change.

—

_Drowning is not so pitiful  
As the attempt to rise.  
Three times, ‘tis said, the drowning man  
Comes up to face the skies_

—

The first time he tries, he takes it slow.

He’s meticulous in his planning; he lowers his doses, makes sure he could keep to his plan even if they get called out on a case.

A week in, he’s twitchy and irritable, hands shaking enough that he keeps them in his pockets whenever he’s talking to anyone. He works in a bullpen of profilers, but nobody says anything until day ten, when Gideon makes a pointed statement about a flu that’s been going round and Hotch sighs and sends him home like he’s a middleschooler.

_Reid, we talked about this. Sick days exist for a reason._

_Come back on Monday if you feel up to it._

He had a plan, but now he has four full days, and he figures he might as well try, because the itch is coming back, slowly but surely, and he doesn’t know how long this gradual letting go will take. He doesn’t know how long he could bear it.

He throws out everything; flushes the drugs, tosses the needles, scraps every bit of his carefully measured plan. He texts Garcia to say that he picked up groceries on his way home and that he’s planning to use the time to rewatch the first two series of the _Doctor Who_ reboot, gives her enough reassurance so that she, or someone else, probably won’t try to check on him under the guise of bringing food or medicine. He writes a letter to his mother, warns her that he’s feeling under the weather, _nothing to worry about_ , because it’s not. If he can control this, he can control the rest of this too. He can control it all.

He settles down, ignores the doubt already sparking through his synapses, and puts the first episode on, because he really has been meaning to rewatch it.

He feels nauseous, even though it hasn’t been long enough since the last dose for symptoms to set in. It’s a placebo effect, of a sort; he’s done his research, he knows what’s coming.

—

_This is the Hour of Lead  
Remembered, if outlived,  
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –  
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –_

—

That first time, he remembers some of it. He drifts back to full awareness slowly, hunched and shivering on his bathroom floor. Everything aches, right down to the bone. The lights are off, but the door’s ajar, thin light filtering in from the other room. It’s still too dark, and the shifting shadows as he raises his head are enough to set panic thrumming through his heart like a bassline.

When he tries to stand, the world warps around him, and he’s left clutching the cold edge of the sink, easing himself back to the floor as his legs threaten to give out under him.

He lies there for another few minutes, tries to sort through the disorientated haze clouding his mind, picks at the tightly knotted strands of dream and memory.

_Choose one to live._

_I can’t._

_Choose._

_Everyone is watching, and nobody says anything._

_Choose one to live, or they all die._

_I can’t, please—_

_They’re in the woods, and his hands are covered in dirt._

_You’re weak._

_I’m not weak._

_Drowning is not so pitiful as the attempt to rise._

_I’m not weak— I’m not—_

_I’m not drowning._

The blood on his hands is real, but it’s his. His arms are scratched raw and he doesn’t remember doing it, but there’s blood drying under his nails and anything’s better than grave dirt.

 _I’m not weak_.

If he can control this, he can control the rest of it too.

It’s the early hours of Sunday morning when he finally pulls himself up, gulping mouthfuls of cold water straight from the tap, washing the bitterness from his mouth. If there’s a grave on his bed when he stumbles out of his bathroom, he doesn’t see it; just collapses, still fully dressed, and sleeps until it’s dark outside again.

He shows up to work fully sober for the first time in months, and nobody says anything.

(It’s not that easy, nothing ever is, but he’s clinging to it with every piece of himself, weaving every fibre of his being into a stubborn shield. He’s shakier than usual, the cravings manifesting in nausea and headaches and that constant pricking under his skin, but he can handle it, he can push it down and control it and eventually it’ll become bearable, and until then, he works. He takes paperwork home to occupy the sleepless nights, plunges headfirst into casework because his brain is so much _sharper_ without the drugs, connections and ideas sparking like coals in the wind and if he can just reignite it, maybe he can burn the rest of it out).

—

_Dear Mom,_

_Emily Dickinson wrote from beyond the grave, in a way. A lot of her poems discuss dying and death. Some of those touch on the moment of death, and go beyond that— there’s the death before dying and there’s the moment of death and there’s the consciousness that lingers. I suppose you could call it a suspension, but it doesn’t feel like that to me, because death to her isn’t always a rising; there’s a fall to it too, a sinking into something nameless and terrible. I think she’s afraid— for all her faith, for all her calmly metered dissections of life and death, she’s still afraid of what might come next._

_I_ _guess that’s fair enough, b_ _ut I still think it’s interesting. It’s a sinking and a falling and a slipping away. It’s not a transcendental rising. It’s a drifting away, so slow and long and inevitable._

_Slipping is Crashe’s Law._

_Three times, ‘tis said, the drowning man comes up to face the skies._

_This is the hour of lead._

_How long does it take?_

_—_

They have too many days without a case, and he relapses into the quietness of it.

He’d forgotten how much empty space there could be in his head, everything silver-smooth and drifting.

He’d forgotten how hard it was to hold on to the rest of it.

Deciding to stop is easier this time, the relief of the high soured by the realisation of what he’s losing, but the withdrawal is worse, somehow. He plans ahead this time, takes time off, doesn’t miss the look of approval he gets from Hotch for finally using his vacation time of his own accord, and sets up a camp of sorts in his cramped bathroom.

He comes to on the floor, head aching, limbs bruised, clothes soaked with vomit and urine, and vaguely recognises that he must have had a seizure.

Some distant corner of his mind registers that that was dangerous, that he could have died, that he’s probably lucky to be alive.

He can’t quite bring himself to believe it.

_—_

He’s still aching and off-balance when he goes back to work this time around, and it’s enough for them to finally say something. Morgan jokes that he’s allergic to holidays, and he laughs it off, shrugs off JJ’s worry just enough to let them all assume he has food poisoning when he slips away to throw up after the briefing. Gideon’s eyes are on him, sharp and sad, and he can’t tell if he _knows_ , isn’t sure at all.

Gideon is gone by the end of the month, and he still doesn’t know.

He barely eats, sleeps less, drinks coffee after coffee until he can pretend his hands are shaking from the caffeine. He scratches his arms raw without realising he’s doing it, cuffs buttoned tight over marks that never get a chance to heal. He stops actively pushing away the team, but it’s like he’s forgotten how to _be_ with them without disappearing. He doesn’t relapse, and maybe that’s the strangest thing about it, because—

_three times the drowning man_

—because he’s never been good with change, never been good with loss, and Gideon leaving is the harshest so far. He feels the dirt under his nails and scrubs until the water and soap are like electric shocks across cracking skin, takes that small pain and uses it to push the ache away. He stays clean, and he feels strangely disconnected from it anyway, like this is just one more thing to wrap up tight and bury, one more bruise to press down on in the name of control. Maybe he should be taking it harder. Maybe he shouldn’t be surprised. He reads Gideon’s letter over and over, picks apart the despair and the loneliness and the flickering hope of a happy ending.

_I just don’t understand any of it anymore._

Morgan puts a hand on his shoulder and keeps it there even when he flinches hard enough to spill his coffee, calls him _kid_ and _pretty boy_ like he’s trying to coax a spooked animal back into the light.

JJ still calls him _spence_ but there’s a worried catch in the vowel of it now, and she hugs him tighter than before, small hands pressing against the ridge of his spine like she’s trying to slot a missing piece back into place.

Hotch doesn’t say anything, but with Gideon gone, they occasionally share a hotel room on cases, and when Spencer leaves the bedside light on, he doesn’t say anything about that either.

Garcia brings in baked goods for the team, claims she’s trying out new recipes and can’t eat them all herself, and he feels her eyes on him with every bite of crumbling sponge and cloying frosting. She asks what he thinks of it, and he can’t bring himself to tell her that everything tastes the same these days, leaf litter rotting between his teeth.

He doesn’t let Prentiss get too close, and maybe she doesn’t try, but she does hold the door to the elevator when she sees him coming. It’s too small, too bright, but he’s running on an hour’s sleep and still didn’t have time for coffee, is dizzy enough to know that taking the stairs would be a bad idea, so he just mutters his thanks and tries not to flinch as the doors close.

“Rough night?” she asks.

“Something like that,” he says. She’s watching him, dark profiler eyes taking it all in; he watches their vague reflections flickering in the metal of the closed doors, and wonders if she can see the ghost of him too. His hands are shaking. He clutches his bag a little tighter.

The doors open slowly, the faint chatter of the bullpen drifting down the corridor; she moves before he does, and it’s a moment before he can force his limbs to follow.

“I’m not usually like this,” he says, so quietly that for a moment he wonders if he’s imagined his own voice. It’s a little ridiculous, because they’ve worked together for much longer in the _after_ than they had in the _before_ and he doubts she can remember him acting any other way, but she turns and nods to him anyway.

“I know, Reid,” she says, so gently he could weep.

—

_Ruin is formal – Devil’s work  
Consecutive and slow –  
Fall in an instant, no man did  
Slipping – is Crashe’s law – _


	2. midnight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spencer knows what he’s trying to do, can tell there’s a whole Derek Morgan Talk coming by the little sigh he makes when he sits down beside him. It’s probably been coming for a while, but that doesn’t stop the sinking feeling in his stomach when Morgan finally says, “You sure you’re doing okay, Reid?”
> 
> “I tried,” he says. “I— I tried talking him down, but I didn’t—"
> 
> “Reid,” Morgan says, in that gentle-stern voice he probably learned from Hotch. He hasn’t put his sunglasses back on, even though it’s bright and warm where they’re sitting. “I’m not talking about the case.”

_‘Twas just this time, last year, I died.  
I know I heard the Corn,  
When I was carried by the Farms –  
It had the Tassels on – _

_I thought how yellow it would look –  
When Richard went to mill –  
And then, I wanted to get out,  
But something held my will._

_—_

_Dear Mom,_

_Emily Dickinson wrote, “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant—”_

_—_

There’s never been a pattern to their cases, but he should have expected that they’d be back in Georgia at some point. When JJ briefs them on the case, he can feels everyone’s gaze flicking to him, but he ignores them, focuses on Rossi because he’s the only one who doesn’t make the connection, hopes that his silence will be enough to remind everyone that he’s fine.

It’s fine.

It’s Georgia, but it’s been a long time, and he’s _fine_ , he’s clean and he’s coping and he’s fine.

He’s having a panic attack in an unfamiliar precinct restroom, knees drawn up tight against his chest, hands skidding against slick plastic tile that feels like leaf litter against his palms; the air is too warm and thick with the stench of burning fish. The door creaks and slams, and he squeezes his eyes shut and waits.

“Reid,” a voice says, jarringly familiar and yet completely _wrong_. “Reid, can you look at me?”

He can’t, not right now, but he can move his hands, bring them to clasp the top of his bent knees, digging shaking fingertips into the joint. “Hotch,” he manages, an uneven sound, dragging on the vowel and fading into a ragged breath. “I’m sorry, I’m fine, I just—”

“It’s alright,” Hotch says. His voice is closer now, the slight rustle of fabric suggesting that he’s crouching, getting to his level. “It’s alright, Reid. Calm down, and then we’ll talk.”

Spencer tries, inhales and counts and exhales until the roar of his heart in his ears feels a little less overwhelming, until he can open his eyes and focus on the way Hotch’s dark suit gleams under the fluorescent lights. “Sorry,” he whispers again.

“What happened there?” Hotch asks. “Something about the case?”

He shakes his head; beyond the state, there are no discerable similarities between this case and the Hankel one; it’s urban, in a different county altogether, an Unsub kidnapping and strangling young women off the street. There’s nothing exceptional about it, nothing that should trigger this sort of reaction, but—

“The chief,” he admits. “He didn’t do anything, but his— the accent is the same.” The voice isn’t identical, but it’s close, a deep drawl that sends chills down his spine, memories of rotting leaves and restraints filling every empty space in his mind until it feels like he’s one step away from falling back into them. He swallows hard, doesn’t look up to see whatever Hotch’s face is doing; he can guess, anyway. Anger, maybe, disappointment, frustration, because it’s been so long, and he’s still not coping. He’s filed the report and passed the evaluations and clawed his way through withdrawal, dragged his world upright and put the pieces together as best as he can, and he should be _fine_ , and yet here he is, curled on the floor like a stubborn child.

“I need to know if you can keep working the case,” Hotch says eventually. “I can have someone take you back to the hotel—”

“I’m fine,” he answers automatically. “I overreacted, I’m sorry—”

“Reid.”

“Did you know that most of the dialectic change leading to what we recognise as today’s southern accent happened as recently as the early twentieth century? It’s known as the Southern Vowel Shift, and it can actually be divided into several recognisable stages affecting different areas of the—”

“Reid. It’s not a problem if you need to take a break.”

“I’m fine,” he says again, and to prove it he forces himself to his feet, blinks as his vision fades to black and back again. “I’ll take a look at the locations, see if I can start putting a geoprofile together.”

In the end their Unsub makes a mistake, and they’re able to close the case less than two days after they arrive, but even so, it takes every scrap of him to control it, to keep it together. Morgan tosses a blanket at his head as soon as they’re back on the jet, tells him to get some rest, and he does. At first he’s just pretending to sleep, avoiding the inevitable questions, but it’s a smooth flight, and he’s so goddamn tired, and in the end it isn’t long before he dozes off for real, lulled into a dreamless twilight by the drone of the engines. The team are talking amongst themselves when he drifts back into consciousness, slowly at first, then a sudden jolt when he hears his name.

“—going on with Reid?” Morgan is asking. “I woke up a couple times during the night and he was still up reading. I don’t think he slept at all. That’s not normal, even for him.”

“I tried to send him back to the hotel at the start of the case,” Hotch says grimly. “He wouldn’t let me. I don’t know if it was something bigger, or if it was just—”

He trails off, and it’s Prentiss who fills the gap. “Georgia, huh?” she says, and there’s a pause as everyone puts the pieces together, broken by a heavy sigh.

“Okay,” Rossi says. “I figure it’s something none of you really want to talk about, but is anyone going to tell me what in the hell happened to the kid?”

There’s a long silence, and Spencer’s stomach twists as he realises that Rossi doesn’t _know_ , that someone’s going to have to explain it to him right now. Nobody had told him when he’d joined the team, the others presumably waiting for Spencer to explain it on his own terms. He should have known it couldn’t last.

“It’s a long story,” Hotch says eventually. “Short version: the last time we were in Georgia, JJ and Reid were sent to interview a potential witness, Tobias Hankel, who turned out to be the unsub.”

“Spence figured it out. Hankel was— he had multiple personalities,” JJ interjects. “We split up, and Hankel trapped me in a shed, and he— he took Spence.” There’s a tremor in her voice; Spencer remembers the way she still flinches at dogs, and remembers he’s not the only one with trauma from that case. He wishes he could interrupt, remind her it wasn’t her fault, but the idea of speaking lodges like a weight in his throat, sharp and choking. His clothes and the blanket feel rough against his skin, an echo of cornstalks, and he moves one hand to unbutton his shirt cuff, runs his fingers across scratch marks that still haven’t healed.

“We found JJ, but Hankel and Reid were already gone,” Hotch continues. “Hankel interrogated him and beat him, forced him to participate in choosing his next targets, and livestreamed parts of it to the team over the next two days. Reid almost— he had one seizure that we know of, and we watched Hankel resuscitate him.”

“Resuscitate?” Rossi echoes. “You mean—”

There’s a hollow pause, the inevitable silence of a truth nobody wants to say. _I died,_ Spencer fills in for himself. _I died in that shed_. Grave dirt under his nails, cold and damp. _Last year, I died—_

“Hankel held Reid at gunpoint and made him choose a member of the team to die. He picked me, and backed it up by misquoting a section of the Bible. The actual quote was a clue to their location. By the time we got there, Hankel was already dead— Reid had managed to get hold of the gun, and shot him in self defense.”

_I am a stranger and a sojourner among you._ He’s holding his breath— it takes him a moment to remember how to inhale again.

“Shit,” Rossi mutters. “And the kid bounced back from that?”

Spencer’s nails catch on the rough edges of his skin, digging in before he can stop himself. _It was not Death, for I stood up._ He can feel the scabs splitting, the tackiness of new blood on his fingertips.

“We thought he did,” Hotch says eventually. “He filled out the case report, passed the psych eval, and came right back to work— I thought it was too early, we could all see he was struggling, but Gideon knew more than I did, and he always told me it was under control when I asked. By the time Gideon left, I thought Reid was doing better, but after this case I’m not so sure.”

“He’s not been himself since that case,” JJ says, quiet and firm. “He never talked to me about it, but something’s not been right.”

“I’m not surprised,” Rossi says. “I’ve seen more experienced agents completely fall apart after half of what he’s been through.”

“That’s Reid for you,” Hotch says. “He’s tougher than he looks. JJ, what do you mean, he never talked to you?”

“I thought maybe he talked to one of you about it,” JJ says. “I’ve tried, but he brushes me off.”

“Me too,” Morgan says slowly. “I don’t remember the last time I asked how he was doing and got a straight answer. Jesus, please tell me he talked to _someone_ about this.”

“I don’t think we’re close enough,” Prentiss admits. “Garcia keeps trying to arrange nights out so we can get to know each other a little better, but he’s never showed up for any of them.”

“Gideon was handling it,” Hotch says, so quietly Spencer can barely hear him over the sound of the engine. “Gideon— Gideon said he would be alright, he just needed some time and space to recover.”

“Gideon’s _gone_ ,” Morgan says sharply. “He’s been gone for a while now, and if Reid’s getting flashbacks during cases he’s obviously not doing as well as we thought. Who’s he been talking to since then?”

Nobody answers. Spencer can feel anxiety twisting in the pit of his stomach, because even after everything, he loves his team. He loves his team and he works with his friends, and those relationships are too tightly wound to bear the weight of his secrets. He’s spent so long controlling it all, painting over the cracks as best as he can; he doesn’t know what he’ll do if someone finally notices the brushstrokes.

There’s a dull thud and a muttered _shit,_ the sound of someone, maybe Morgan, bringing their fist down against the table, and Spencer doesn’t have to pretend to jolt upright, breath catching in his throat.

“Are we nearly back?” he asks when the team turn to look at him, voice hoarse enough to pass for having just woken up.

“Ten minutes,” Hotch says. “I’ll give you a lift back to your apartment.” It’s a command, not an offer; when they land, he reaches for Spencer’s go-bag before he can protest, and all he can do is follow him off the plane and into the car park.

It’s a short drive to Spencer’s place, especially this late, but Hotch waits until they’re nearly at his block before clearing his throat to begin the inevitable. “What happened on Tuesday—” he begins, voice carefully neutral. They’re both exhausted, and Spencer feels a sudden surge of guilt for making him deal with this all over again.

“It won’t happen again,” he says, as steadily as he can. He knows he’s going to have to give a little if he wants to smooth this over without it falling apart, so he elaborates before Hotch can press him. “I’ve been having some trouble sleeping recently, but I’m dealing with it. The case affected me more than I expected, but it didn’t impact my ability to work in any major way, and it won’t happen again.”

“That wasn’t what I was going to ask about,” Hotch says. They slow to a stop for a red light, and Spencer has to force himself to hold eye contact when his boss turns to look at him. “Reid, I want you to be honest with me. Has it happened before?”

He waits for the light to change before answering. “Not on cases,” he says, picking his way through the words like there’s a landmine under his tongue. “I can handle it.”

“But it’s happened before?”

“Yes.” He bites back the details, the _Tuesday_ , the _last week_ , the _every time I sleep long enough to dream._ “I get nightmares, sometimes. We all do.”

Hotch pulls up outside Spencer’s building and cuts the engine. “We support each other as a team,” he says before Spencer can unfasten his seatbelt. “You know that.”

“I know.”

“But we can’t support you if you don’t let us know when you need the help, Reid.”

“Hotch, I’m fine, really. This case was just the exception that proves the rule, okay?”

Hotch sighs, and Spencer knows he’s won this round. “All I want to hear from you is that you’ll ask for help when you need it.” It’s a _when,_ not an _if_ , and they both know it’s deliberate. Part of him wants to push it, _do you think I can’t take care of myself?,_ but he knows that arguing will only nudge Hotch further towards the questions he can’t let himself answer, so instead he just nods curtly and opens the door.

“I will,” he says. He’s made it this far without their help, regardless of what Hotch thinks Gideon did or didn’t do, but either way there’s a part of him that knows if this particular shit hits the fan, it won’t matter anymore whether the team knows or not. “Thanks for the ride, Hotch.”

“Get some rest, Reid.”

When he gets into his apartment, he double-checks the locks and repacks his go-bag, an automatic ritual he could do in his sleep. Undresses and showers, limbs pale and uncoordinated under a flickering lightbulb he needs to replace. Checks his phone one last time— a scattering of texts from the team, unsubtle variations on _you can always talk to me_ and _good work on the case_ and _we should get together outside of work if you’re free_. He doesn’t answer any of them, just plugs it in at the wall and gets into bed, stares at the shifting shadows on the ceiling and tries not to blink. 

—

_Dear Mom,_

_We got back from Georgia last night._

_The grave is still there, metaphorically speaking._

_I’m tired. I’m so, so tired._

_I don’t know what else there is to say._

_—_

Garcia finally manages to drag him out on a cocktail night with Prentiss and JJ, gives him a list of suggested venues and makes him choose the time when he tries to decline. His alcohol tolerance is low at the best of times, let alone now, when he’s barely eating and perpetually spaced-out, but they get several rounds in before JJ realises how far gone he is.

“Okay, Spence,” she laughs, taking his glass out of his hand before he can spill it. “I haven’t seen you this wasted in forever— sit tight, I’ll get you some water.” She’s gone before he can answer, blonde curls bouncing out of his peripheral vision.

“Honestly, I’m amazed that Reid gets wasted at all,” Prentiss says. He’s pretty sure that she’s had more than him, but she seems to be holding it better, her bright eyes and low-cut top the only real difference to how she presents herself at work.

“Not often,” Garcia says. “When he first joined us he was just an itty-bitty little baby genius who’d only been legal for what, fourteen months? And he’d spent most of that time finishing a doctorate and zooming through the academy. Morgan took him on his first-ever bar crawl— I have the pictures somewhere, they’re _precious—”_

Prentiss laughs a little, and Spencer shakes his head, regrets it as the bar’s music pulses through his skull. Garcia had been careful to suggest somewhere with relatively subtle lighting, which he appreciates, but they’ve never been able to find a place where the music doesn’t bother him at least a little. “Not usually this bad,” he mumbles, and Garcia reaches for his arm, pats it soothingly. He leans into the touch, and she lets him.

“I know you’re not, honey,” she says. “You’ve been having a tough time lately, huh? We all need to relax once in a while.”

He’s just aware enough to recognise when a question is edging into dangerous territory, the sort he was hoping to avoid on a night like this, so it’s a relief when JJ reappears with a pitcher of water and pushes a glass into his hand. There’s a straw sticking out of it, the sort you’d give to a child, long and red and squiggly.

“Yes, it is,” JJ says, sounding like she’s trying not to laugh. “Come on, drink up. It’ll help, trust me.”

The glass is cold, condensation beading on the sides and dripping onto his hand. He hasn’t been drunk in a long time, but there’s something nice about it, the way it numbs the part of his mind that’s perpetually on edge. He takes a sip, swallows it down, feels the chill of it in his throat.

_It helps._

He hasn’t been drunk in a long time, but there’s something familiar about it, the way everything fades into a blur of light and sound unless he’s actively trying to focus on it; the way he feels a little out of sync with his own body.

_Trust me, I know._

The water is cold and the glass is slipping in his hand and suddenly it hits him, the way the world feels like it’s just barely tilting to the side, everything silver-smooth and bright, and he can’t do this again, he’s been trying so hard but he can’t do it again, he can’t he can’t he can’t—

“Spence?”

Someone is taking the glass out of his hand.

His hands are damp from the condensation.

His hands are shaking. He can’t do this again.

_Don’t tell my father._

“Spence, you still with us?”

_I’m going to be sick,_ he thinks. He’s not sure if he says it aloud, but suddenly there’s an arm looped around his waist and he’s stumbling out of their booth.

“Come on, we’ll get you some air,” someone’s saying— JJ, it’s JJ, she’s tugging him through the crowd and out of the door, into the cool night air. He doubles over, nearly cracks his head against the wall before she catches him, pushing his hair back from his face as he heaves and chokes and finally vomits onto the sidewalk. If she notices that it’s nothing but tonight’s drinks, she doesn’t mention it, just murmurs soothing phrases and keeps one hand on his back as he tries to get his breathing under control.

“Can we go?” he croaks eventually, head spinning a little.

“Of course, just let me text the girls—”

She does it one-handed, rummages in her pocket with the other and passes him a tissue so he can wipe his mouth. Prentiss flags down a taxi, and he’s gently manhandled into the backseat, winds up slumped against the window with the comforting softness of Garcia’s dress on his other side. Without saying a word, she takes his hand and tugs at it until he’s leaning against her instead. He can smell her perfume when he breathes in, coconut and citrus chasing the last vestiges of rotting leaves and burning fish out of his mind. The girls’ talk fades into the background drone of the road; he doesn’t realise they’re going to his apartment first until they arrive. Garcia squeezes his hand and leans over him to open the door, and JJ walks him through the parking lot and up the stairs to his corridor.

“Emily ordered you a pizza,” she says as he fumbles with his keys. “It should be here soon.”

It’s not what he expects her to say, but it’s jarring enough to quiet some of the anxiety still looping around his mind, and all he can do is blink at her and say “What?” while his brain catches up.

“Spence, we know what you’re like. Look me in the eye and tell me you have something you could eat right now in your kitchen.”

She’s right; the most he has is maybe a packet of frozen vegetables and some uncooked pasta, neither of which are really appealing, so he just shrugs. “Thank her for me,” he says. “Garcia too. Tonight was nice.” He swallows hard, wishes his hands would stop shaking long enough to get the key in the lock. “I’m sorry I ruined it.”

JJ shakes her head, an odd look flickering across her face. “You didn’t ruin anything,” she says. “I promise. It was really good to hang out with you— sometimes it feels like we hardly see you outside of work anymore.”

The click of the lock is too loud in the silent hallway. “I’m sorry,” he says again.

“You don’t have to explain right now,” she says. “But we know there’s something going on, Spence, and we want to help you, whatever it is. You just need to give us the chance.”

She waits; when he doesn’t answer, she just sighs, a sad little sound, and steps forward to hug him. It’s a moment before he can coordinate his limbs enough to respond, rests his chin on her shoulder and wills his hands to stop shaking.

“I can stay,” she whispers into his shoulder. “I’ll stay tonight, if you want me to. I don’t know if I should leave you alone.”

“JJ, I’m fine,” he says, lets her go and begins the old magic trick of pulling himself together. “Or I’ll be fine. I’ll eat my pizza and drink some water and probably wake up with a hangover anyway, but I’ll be fine. You don’t need to worry.”

She gives him a long look, all big blue eyes and smudged eyeshadow, but eventually she nods. “Sleep well,” she says, and he watches her go, listens to her light steps echoing all the way down the stairwell.

When he closes the door to his apartment, it feels emptier than usual.

—

~~_cups of artificial drowse, to steep its shape away; the grave was finished, but the spade remained in memory. dear mom I’m so scared that I won’t be able to do it again if I have to_ ~~

_—_

He wakes up screaming. He wakes up crying. He wakes up with his heart hammering in his throat. He wakes up so many times that he starts doubting whether any of it is real at all. He wakes up with the grave curled around him in an embrace he’s forgotten how to live without. He wakes up and stumbles to the bathroom to throw up or splash cold water over his face or just stare into the mirror, forcing himself to make eye contact with a reflection he barely recognises as his. He presses his fingertips hard to the shadows under his eyes, drags them along and down the ridge of his jawline, watches more than feels the skin stretching under his grip; twists as far as he can to press his hands flat against his own back, a contorted attempt at a hug he can’t quite reach.

His hands fall away.

He wakes up.

He wakes up.

He wakes up.

He drifts away, and every time, he wakes up.

—

_Dear Mom,_

_I know Penelope’s going to be okay_ _and I know we’re going to be there for her and I know it’s a completely different situation, but I can’t stop thinking about it._

_Part of me is worried that she’ll do what I did. What I’m doing. I did it because I didn’t want to lose them, I didn’t want to be alone, ~~but I am~~_

_I still feel alone. Even if I can control everything else, I can’t control that._

_—_

“Reid, you okay?”

Gunshots sound so much worse in bathrooms; he knows the physics of it, bouncing and echoing around his skull with all the things he wishes he didn’t know. There’s a body on the floor and blood on the walls and Morgan is asking if he’s okay and he can barely make himself answer, can’t quite hear his own voice through the ringing in his ears.

The world feels like it’s shaking; it’s a moment before he realises that he’s the one moving, swaying on his feet as his legs threaten to give out from under him.

“Reid?”

“I tried,” he manages. His tongue feels too heavy in his mouth; his hands have gone numb.

“Morgan, take him outside,” Hotch says, voice a sharp crease from where he’s crouched beside the body.

Morgan grabs him by the elbows, half-walking, half-dragging him out into the corridor. He stumbles when they get outside, caught off-guard by the sunlight and the sight of JJ and Prentiss handing off to the locals, but Morgan just mutters “Don’t you _dare_ pass out on me, kid,” and keeps moving until they find a bench at the side of the parking lot, presses him onto it and pushes his head down between his knees. “Take a deep breath,” he says. “Jesus, Reid. You need to start working out, or just eating more. Feels like I could snap you in half.”

“I’m fine,” Spencer says, although it doesn’t sound very convincing when he’s staring at his feet and waiting for his ears to stop ringing. When he raises his head again, he can feel appraising eyes on him, and he expects an argument; instead there’s a hand at his ribs, and he flinches away before realising that Morgan’s just trying to undo the straps of his vest.

It’s a little easier to breathe with the weight of it gone, a little easier to pretend that he didn’t just watch someone die.

“Do we need to get back?”

“The others will have it covered,” Morgan says. “You still look like you’re about to hit the dirt, pretty boy. Take a couple minutes.”

Spencer knows what he’s trying to do, can tell there’s a whole Derek Morgan Talk coming by the little sigh he makes when he sits down beside him. It’s probably been coming for a while— Morgan was as frightened by what happened to Garcia by any of them, has been a little more on his guard ever since— but that doesn’t stop the sinking feeling in his stomach when Morgan finally says, “You sure you’re doing okay, Reid?”

“I tried,” he says. “I— I tried talking him down, but I didn’t—"

“Reid,” Morgan says, in that gentle-stern voice he probably learned from Hotch. He hasn’t put his sunglasses back on, even though it’s bright and warm where they’re sitting. “I’m not talking about the case.”

Spencer just shrugs. “It’s been a weird time for everyone,” he says. “I’m fine.”

“C’mon, Reid. Either we hash this out now, or I bring it up on the jet in front of everyone. You’re not getting away from it this time.”

“I’m okay,” he says. The thing is, JJ and Hotch and the others will probably have compared notes, tried to put the little pieces of truth together in hope of finding him whole again, and he doesn’t know what he can say to fill in the gaps. He doesn’t have a way to tell them that there’s just a hole right through him these days, everything he can’t hold on to pouring out like sand.

“You’re not,” Morgan says. He reaches out and rests a hand on Spencer’s shoulder— not his usual fleeting, playful movement, but something else, tentative and gentle like he’s afraid of hurting him. “I know you better than that, Reid.”

“Don’t profile me, Morgan,” Spencer says. It’s not a threat, but there’s something hollow and dangerous to the words, because he doesn’t know what he’ll do if Morgan pushes too far.

“Don’t lie to me, kid. I can feel every damn bone in your back. I could’ve carried you out of that bathroom if I’d had to. You never used to feel this—” He hesitates, like the word’s stuck in his throat, and his voice is quieter when he finally says, “fragile.”

Spencer can’t breathe in deeply enough. “You could’ve carried me anyway,” he says first, and Morgan’s grip tightens, a touch that he has to stop himself from leaning into. 

“Come on, Spencer,” he says again. There’s something pleading in his voice, the same hopeless something he’s heard from everyone else this year. _I don’t know how to help you. I just don’t understand any of it anymore. Tell me what I’m missing._

“I’m trying,” Spencer says instead. He doesn’t know how true it is anymore, but it’s all he’s got. “I can’t— it’s complicated, Morgan, but I’m _trying_.”

Something in Morgan’s gaze softens at that. “I know you are,” he says. “But you don’t have to do everything on your own, Spencer. Things are hard enough as they are.”

Spencer manages to smile at him, and then Morgan’s cellphone rings and he’s answering, _hey Hotch, yeah, he’s okay, just needed some air, we’ll be back with you soon_ , and Spencer’s already standing and blinking the sunspots out of his vision by the time he hangs up.

“Duty calls?” he says, and Morgan rolls his eyes, slings an arm round his shoulders as they start walking back towards the school.

“Hotch says we’ll debrief on the plane,” he says. “I think everyone just wants to get the hell out of here.”

—

_Dear Mom,_

_Emily Dickinson wrote about— she wrote about a lot of things, really. She wrote about loneliness and grief and death and fear, and she wrote about nature and faith as well._

_She wrote so much about death, and I thought that I understood some of it. Is there a wrong way to read a poem? I can’t forget them— they’re so easy to memorise, even for me, every iambic line as clear as if I’m reading it for the first time. It’s kind of interesting, the way I remember that time, because the rest of it is so_ _ephemeral, drifting fragments of memories. I guess it makes sense that the things I remember best are fragmentary too. I remember it, and I thought that I understood it, ~~and I don’t think there’s a wrong way to read a poem, but I think I was~~_

_I don't think there's a wrong way to read a poem, but I think I was understanding the wrong things. Or maybe I was understanding the wrongness. There are gaps in her lines, and you don’t know what’s supposed to fill them, so instead you look closer and find something of yourself._

_Crashe’s law— it’s a slipping away, it’s so gradual and slow, and one day you wake up and you’re further down than you ever thought was possible._

_I thought I could control it. I thought I'd find a way out. I don't know why I can't. I don’t know which way out I’m looking for._

_—_

_As if my life were shaven,  
_ _And fitted to a frame,  
_ _And could not breathe without a key,  
_ _And ’twas like Midnight, some -_

_When everything that ticked - has stopped -  
_ _And space stares - all around -  
_ _Or Grisly frosts - first Autumn morns,  
_ _Repeal the Beating Ground -_

_But most, like Chaos - Stopless - cool -_  
 _Without a Chance, or spar -  
_ _Or even a Report of Land -  
_ _To justify - Despair._


	3. annus mirabilis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I am a stranger and a sojourner with you.”_ _I don’t know how else I could explain it to them._ _I am a stranger and a sojourner; unfamiliar, transient, dead man walking._ _I just don’t understand any of it anymore._
> 
> shit goes down. spencer gets pushed out of a window. no I will not elaborate on that.

_Ourself behind ourself, concealed –  
Should startle most – _

—

_Dear Mom,_

_“Can human nature not survive / Without a listener?”_

_That one’s about volcanoes, and secrets. I don’t know how true it is._

_I don’t know how I’m doing it anymore— I don’t know if I’m trying or not, or if the lies are just muscle memory at this point. I don’t like lying, not to the team, ~~because there’s a difference between~~_

_There’s a difference between keeping things private, little things that wouldn’t affect anything, and this. Some things are inevitable and some things can’t stay hidden forever and it’s so much worse now, because they’ll hate me for lying as much as they would for the rest of it._

_I thought it would stop, you know? Not stop, exactly, but shrink away. Get easier to deal with, easier to stop thinking about, but it’s been year and the grave is still there, no matter what I do. Maybe it’ll always be there. Some things are inevitable and some things are inescapable and some things can be controlled, but it all comes at a price._

_I thought it would get easier, but there are still bad days._

_Mom, there are still so many bad days._

_—_

The trees are endless, dim jagged shadows pressed close around him. It takes him a long time to realise that the darkness isn’t just trees— through the gaps in the branches is dirt, steep slopes of dirt as far as he can see, stretching up and over him with the blackness of a night sky with no stars.

Eventually he realises.

He’s still in the grave.

He’s clawed his way out and staggered away, but he’s still in the grave. He could run to the ends of the earth and he’d still be in it. He’ll never be out of it as long as he lives. There’ll always be the blood on the ground and the dilaudid in his veins and the dirt on his hands and feet and face, covering him and choking him and pulling him down until that’s all there is, until he’s the grave and the grave is him.

There’s a body behind him somewhere, staring glassy-eyed up at the dirt-dark sky. He can’t see it, but he doesn’t need to turn around and check. This is the grave. There’s always a body.

“Help me!” he screams, despite it all. “Anyone, _please—”_

He screams for a long time, small and cracked and hollow, and finally, finally, someone says something.

_I got him_ , they’re saying. _Hotch, I got him, east side of the building, we need medics here yesterday._

It feels like he’s sinking upwards, dragged from an empty grave into a too-hot blur of dizzy pain, a shrill ringing in his ears.

“Who buried him?” he manages. His voice is hoarse and doesn’t sound like his, and he never asked, afterwards, hasn’t looked at the case file since submitting his own contribution.

“Oh, thank god— Reid, are you with me?” There are hands on him, moving cool and gentle against his neck.

“Hankel,” he tries again, the word raw in his throat, and the hands still. “Who buried him?”

“Reid, open your eyes.”

The voice is familiar, but he can’t quite place it; his brain is swirling like a centrifuge, everything he should know flung out to the edges of his consciousness. “JJ?” he tries.

“It’s me,” she says. “Prentiss. Reid, I need you to open your eyes.”

He tries to blink, eyes leaden against the rush of warm light. Prentiss is a blur above him, dark ponytail and a navy vest. “What— what happened?”

“You tell me,” she says. “No, no, don’t move, I think you went through a window, there’s glass everywhere.”

He blinks again; the blurriness stays. “Glasses,” he says. “I think I lost my— everything’s all—”

“Reid, you weren’t wearing your glasses,” she says. “You’ve probably got a concussion. Can you tell me where we are?”

“Outside?” Thinking hurts, and everything about this feels _wrong_ , the ground is hot and hard and gritty under him and it should be something else. “I was— there— there was—” _Cold damp air, rotting leaves against bare feet, trees in the darkness. Hands on his throat._

“Eyes open,” Prentiss reminds him. “I need you to stay awake, Reid. It’s a local case, we got the guy, but lost contact with you in the takedown. Stay awake, okay? Everyone’s freaking out enough as it is.”

“I don’t— I don’t remember,” he says. “I was—”

“Over here,” Prentiss calls sharply. He blinks, and there are more hands on him, firm and unfamiliar. Some of them take hold of his wrists while others reach for his neck, and the ringing in his ears rises sharply, blocking out everything else.

“Don’t let them take me,” he begs. He can barely hear his own voice slurring through the static of panic. “Prentiss— Prentiss, _Emily_ , don’t let them take me, I don’t want— I don’t want to go, you can’t let them take me again—” He tries to push against whoever’s touching him, and their grip tightens. “Emily,” he says again, desperate. “ _Hotch_ , please—”

“If he keeps resisting we might have to sedate him,” someone says, and he twists away from the voice, cries out as his ribs shift in a way they shouldn’t be able to.

“No, you can’t,” he says. “Please, you can’t, I don’t want it, I don’t— I don’t want it, let me die, I’d rather die, I can’t do it again, _please_ -“

He can hear Emily’s voice like it’s a long way away, sharp through the distance. “—him go, jesus, let him _go,”_ she’s saying. “I’ll try and talk him down, okay?”

“Agent, we don’t have time—”

“He’s confused, and it’s hurting him more,” Emily snaps. “Just— just let me try, okay?”

There’s a pause, and then the hands disappear, ghost sensations prickling on his skin. “Emily,” he says again. He can feel his chest heaving, breath coppery and dry in his mouth. His body doesn’t feel like his, but it hurts anyway.

“Yeah, that’s right. Eyes on me, Reid.” He forces his eyes open again, squints against the sunlight up at her. “Good, good. You’re safe, you’re okay— it’s a local case, the rest of the team are wrapping things up, everyone here is trying to help you, alright? You need to lie still, let them help you.” She takes his hand, slow and gentle, and he lets her.

“Stay,” he manages. Her fingers are firm and real on his.

“I’ll stay,” she promises.

“No sedatives,” he says, tries to match her grip. “Please, I don’t want—”

“Agents, we really need to get moving,” another voice interrupts, and he finally lets them take him, allows himself to be swallowed up by the bright emptiness of the ambulance.

Emily’s on the phone for part of it, but she doesn’t let go of his hand, and when they start talking about painkillers she goes _look Hotch I’m going to have to call you back_ and hangs up. “You’re okay, Reid,” she says. “Calm down.”

She takes his hand again, and his other one, pulling them down and away from where he’s trying to resist the paramedics. “Don’t let them give me anything,” he says. “I don’t want it. I can’t— they can’t give me anything.”

“It’s just a painkiller,” one of the medics says. “Are there allergies we should know about?”

“Carbenicillin,” Emily says, but her gaze is still on Spencer. “Reid, what do you mean?”

“Don’t give me anything,” he says. The sinking feeling is back, and he’s not sure how many of his words are coming out coherently, but he tries anyway. “Please. I can’t do it again.”

“Do what again?” Emily is squeezing his hand, but it feels like it’s happening to somebody else. It all does. “Hey, you’ve gotta stay with me,” she says, sharp and distant. “Eyes on me, Reid.”

He tries, he really does.

He sinks anyway. 

—

_I felt a funeral in my Brain  
And Mourners, to and fro  
Kept treading – treading till it seemed  
That sense was breaking through_

_Dear Mom,_

_It was not Death for I stood up I stood up I Stood Up I STOOD UP_

_and all the Dead lie down_

_And when they all were seated  
A Service, like a drum  
Kept beating – beating till I thought  
My mind was going numb —_

_Spencer I knew it would be you who came_

_I just don’t understand any of it anymore_

_I just don’t understand—_

_And then I heard them lift a Box  
And creak across my Soul  
With those same Boots of Lead, again,  
Then Space – began to toll,_

_and Emily Dickinson wrote about being pursued by a grave,  
forbear a place among you so I may bury my dead, _

_As all the Heavens were a Bell,  
And Being, but an Ear,  
And I, and Silence, some strange Race,  
Wrecked, solitary, here – _

_for I am a stranger and a sojourner with you_

_Do you think I’ll see my mom again?_

_And then a Plank in Reason, broke,  
And I dropped down, and down -  
And hit a World, at every plunge,  
And Finished knowing – then – _

_Emily Dickinson wrote_

_I’ll stay tonight, if you want me to_

_she said_

_I know you better than that_

_Emily—_

_Eyes on me, Reid._

_Emily?_

—

“Emily?”

Dim electronic hum and the buzz of sheets against his skin and a faint light in his ears.

“Oh, you’re awake!”

The electronic hum and dim lights and sheets against his skin, thin and loose and prickling, and perfume, faint under the smell of hospital, hand sanitiser and citrus and coconut.

“Garcia?”

“That’s me, boy wonder. I’m just calling in your doctor, okay? She’ll check you over, and then you’ll probably be good to go, I know you hate hospitals— the rest of the team are on their way, they just had to wrap a few things up with the local PD, Emily said you shouldn’t wake up on your own so I—”

Hands on his throat, shattering glass and blazing sun. The walls in here are white and too close; Garcia is wearing yellow, bright and warm, and he focuses on that instead.

“Garcia, what happened?”

_Emily said you shouldn’t wake up on your own._

“Oh, boy wonder, please tell me you remember how you ended up in here.”

He doesn’t; Garcia walks him through it, slow and calm and steady, but he can barely focus on her voice. They piece it together, bit by bit— the local case, the negotiation gone wrong.

“He— did he take me?”

“He changed the negotiation location, made you come into the building with him, but he panicked, made a run for it. Morgan got him when he tried to go out through a fire exit, but we lost contact with you. They found your comm in a stairwell— we think he hit you, made you drop it, and then kept going.”

He drags his way through the layers of memories, separating out dreams and nightmares from the scraps of reality. Trees and concrete and dark skies and sunlight and glass and wood and hot sun and burning fish and—

“He— did he push me out of a window?”

This comes just as the doctor enters the room, and she smiles gently and says, “Based on what Agent Prentiss told us when you arrived, we think it’s quite likely you went _through_ the window, if that’s any consolation.”

“Not really,” Spencer says. “Can I— can I leave now?”

“There’s still a few tests I’d like to run, just to make sure everything’s okay, but you should be okay to go later today. First off, we should talk about pain relief—”

“What did you give me?” he asks, a wave of panic already rising in the pit of his stomach, and he can almost feel it already, drifting through his brain and his blood and the air in his aching lungs, that old familiar distance.

The doctor frowns. “Nothing,” she says. “Agent Prentiss made it very clear that you weren’t to be given anything without your verbal consent, so I’ll ask you now: do you want anything for the pain?”

He breathes out, feels the ache of his ribs through the cresting panic. “No,” he says. “No, I don’t want anything.”

Beside the bed, Garcia makes a little protesting noise. “You— Spencer, you got _pushed through a window_ , you can’t just—”

“I don’t want anything,” he says again. “At all.”

The doctor is still frowning, but she nods, checks off a box on her clipboard. “Okay,” she says. “But if there’s a medical reason for that, any potential problems, it should be listed in your file. For future reference.”

“It’s not a medical thing,” Spencer says. “I just— I don’t want them.”

The doctor meets his gaze, but before she can say anything else, the door opens and Hotch comes in, the rest of the team crowded behind him.

“Jesus, kid,” Morgan says when he sees him. “How many bulletproof vests do we have to give you to stop this happening?”

“There wasn’t a gun this time,” Spencer says. “I’m fine.”

“We were discussing pain medication,” the doctor says, in a tone that suggests she doesn’t trust Spencer’s judgement. “I was just saying that if Agent Reid has any problem with specific medications, it should be listed in his file.”

“Yes, I know,” Hotch says. He sounds tired, and Spencer suddenly realises he doesn’t know what time it is. “I’m his proxy, I’ll get that sorted.”

There’s an authority in Hotch’s tone that breaks the tension in the room like a stone through water, drawing almost everyone’s gaze; Emily just keeps looking at him, eyes dark and sad, and he knows without either of them saying a word that he’s finally, finally, out of time.

There’s a few tests, and they take long enough that the pain grows claws and digs them in, settling heavy in his muscles, but then they’re almost over and he’s being told he can leave. He’s lucky, apparently. The worst concussion of his career so far, the ribs, cuts and scrapes and bruises, but nothing permanent, nothing serious. _Lucky._ He can’t bring himself to believe it.

“I live alone,” Spencer says when she asks, and is promptly cut off by a round of shushing from the team.

“You can stay with one of us,” Hotch says. “Or we’ll stay with you, whatever you’re more comfortable with.”

“I don’t— I don’t have a guest room,” Spencer says. “Just a couch.”

“That’s okay,” Hotch says. “We’ll figure something out. I don’t think any of us want you to be alone tonight, anyway.”

It takes Spencer a moment to process the implications with that, to link it with Garcia’s _Emily said you shouldn’t wake up on your own_ from earlier, but when he does, it’s like a shock running through him, cold and numb to the pit of his stomach.

“You told _Hotch_?” he says to Emily, unable to keep the note of betrayal out of his voice even though he knows how childish. He can’t remember exactly what happened, doesn’t know how much he said, but he knows none of it was good, nothing anyone needed to see. _Eyes on me, Reid._

“I— Spencer, of course I told Hotch. You were— I haven’t seen you react like that since—” She breaks off, takes a breath. “I’m worried about you,” she says, slow and firm. “I’ve been worried for a while. We all have.”

Do they all know? He can’t tell. He’s a profiler, but they are too, and he can’t tell if they all know or not.

“I’m fine,” he says, stares around the room and realises nobody believes him. “I’m— I’m fine, really.”

“Spence, you’re _not_ ,” JJ says. “It’s okay, but you need to let us help you.” Her voice is shaking, just the tiniest bit.

“What is this, an intervention?” he asks, sharp and biting as he can manage, and her flinch shatters his guilt into fragments. The doctor clears her throat, hands Hotch the papers that they’ll need to sign Spencer out of the hospital, and makes a quiet exit. Does she know? Could anyone tell, just by looking at him?

“It’s not an intervention,” Hotch says. “It’s not an anything, right now.” The statement is directed at the rest of the team as much as it is at Spencer, and they can all hear the _later_ as if he’d shouted it.

“Stop profiling me,” he says. He can’t look at any of them.

“Kid, it’s not just about what happened today—”

“Not right now,” Hotch says again, and Morgan stops, hands jerking in a frustrated, aborted gesture.

“I’m tired,” Spencer says, almost begging, voice cracking under the truth of it. He looks at Garcia, because she’s the easiest to persuade, will be the easiest to tell if she’s brave enough to ask him what nobody has asked yet. “ _Please_ , can I just go home?”

Everyone goes quiet.

“Yeah,” Garcia says after a moment, soft and shattering, because Garcia has always been the bravest out of all of them. “Yeah, Spencer, I can take you home right now, if that’s what you want.”

—

_Dear Mom,_

_“I am a stranger and a sojourner with you.”_

_I don’t know how else I could explain it to them._

_I am a stranger and a sojourner; unfamiliar, transient, dead man walking._

_I just don’t understand any of it anymore._

_—_

Garcia drives him home and stays the night, and he doesn’t have the energy to stop her from taking care of him. His apartment is a mess— covered in dust, stacks of books and papers scattered on just about every surface, but she clears a space on the couch and makes him sit there while she unpacks the groceries she stopped to buy on the way. He’s waiting for her to ask, but instead she gives him a glass of water and brings his bedsight light through from the bedroom instead of turning on the main light, sets them up with blankets and snacks and her laptop, the brightness turned down low and a playlist of _Doctor Who_ audiobooks.

It’s a long night; they listen and he dozes and she wakes him up again, makes him drink some water, eat a little food, lets him sleep again. He doesn’t sleep long enough to dream, and he’s glad of it. He can’t stop shivering, feels like he’s going to shatter, like he’s going to throw up, like he’s one breath away from drowning. Garcia pulls another blanket around his shoulders and keeps him steady.

“I’m going to ask you something,” she says eventually. It’s late, or early, he’s not sure, but neither of them are sleeping. An audiobook is still playing softly, a murmur keeping the apartment from being totally silent. “It’s a personal questions, but it’s something I should have started asking a long time ago, and I want— I _need_ you to be honest with me.”

It feels like his breath has frozen inside his chest. “Garcia—”

“Penelope, this is a Penelope question. I’m not your coworker right now, Spencer, I’m your friend.” She takes a deep breath, shifts a little closer to him. “Have you ever thought of hurting yourself? That, or— or something worse?”

He opens his mouth, and what comes out is, “Are you asking if I’m suicidal?”

Penelope finds his hand, squeezes it tightly. “I just need you to give me an answer.”

“I— I don’t want to kill myself,” he says, a little more hesitant than he’d like. “I mean— I’m not going to do that. But— but sometimes—”

The words stick in his throat, cold and heavy as melting ice, and he doesn’t know how he could explain it to her, to anyone. _I am a stranger and a sojourner among you_.

He doesn’t realise there are tears on his face until Penelope whispers _oh, Spencer, my love,_ and presses a wad of tissues into his hand, and then he’s crying, thick sobs that jolt his ribs and tear the breath out of him.

“I don’t want it to change,” he gasps when she pulls him into a hug, wrapping them both in a tangle of blanket and sweater and hair. “I don’t— I don’t want things to change, I don’t want to lose this, I don’t— I don’t want to lose you all.”

Penelope shakes her head and pulls back again, and for a moment his heart breaks. “Something has to change, Spencer,” she says, and he realises she’s crying too. “You can’t go on like this. But you won’t lose me, I promise. I don’t know what else you haven’t been telling us, but I’ll still be here. I don’t care how bad it is. We’ll all still be here for you.”

He loses his words completely then, and cries until he falls asleep again; it must have been long enough by now that she lets him sleep through to morning, shallow and dreamless.

—

_A not admitting of the wound  
Until it grew so wide  
That all my Life had entered it  
And there were troughs beside – _

_A closing of the simple lid that opened to the sun  
Until the tender Carpenter  
Perpetual nail it down – _

_—_

Penelope tries to make him stay home the next day, and he tells her that he’ll just show up by himself if she doesn’t take him with her. She threatens to disable his access to the building, but she also says “goddamnit, boy wonder, I’m not letting you ride the subway by yourself when you’re like this,” and agrees to drive him to work as long as he drinks the smoothie she made him and takes a couple of Tylenol. He knows the Tylenol won’t do much more than take the edge off, and maybe that’s why he agrees to it. The smoothie is banana, and he pretends not to notice the protein mix she’s added, and he drinks as much as he can manage.

“Hotch wants to talk to you,” she says on the way.

“I know.”

“I meant what I said. Whatever it is, I’ll still be here. We all will.”

“I know,” he says again, and this time he looks at her, sees the worry etched on her face as she stares down the lane of traffic.

Sure enough, Hotch pulls him into his office as soon as they’re out of the elevator, one hand on his elbow and the other firm on his shoulder. “I was going to give you time to recover, but if you’re here, we’re going to talk,” he says, low and serious. “Take a seat, Reid.”

Spencer doesn’t argue. He knows what’s coming, and he’s too tired to hold it back any longer. “Go ahead,” he says, sinking into the seat on the other side of the desk. If the cooperation surprises Hotch, it doesn’t show on his face; he just takes a deep breath and settles into his chair, a look on his face that always reminds Spencer that Hotch was a lawyer before he was a profiler.

“Prentiss spoke to me when I got to the hospital yesterday,” Hotch says, and that’s it, really. “She told me that you’d resisted the medics when they tried to sedate you, that you were confused, distressed, talking about the Hankel case. She told me that you refused painkillers, and asked her to make sure you weren’t given anything.” He pauses, and then adds, more quietly, “She also reminded me that Hankel was an addict, that drug equipment was found at the scene, and that we’d prioritised getting you home over any non-essential medical tests.”

Spencer can’t help the way he flinches, biting down hard on his lip until he tastes blood. The banana smoothie feels like a lead weight in his stomach. “I can explain,” he says. His voice is so small, so frail, and it tastes like a lie in his mouth. He’s thought about this conversation for so long, plotted out every possible way it could go, and yet he doesn’t know what to say. He’s not going to lie— he doesn’t want to, _can’t,_ not anymore— but he can’t find the words for the truth either. “Hotch, I can—”

“I’m not angry about this,” Hotch tells him, far more gently than he deserves. “I wish we’d seen it earlier, but that’s not your fault, Reid. I understand why you wanted to keep this hidden, but I promise you I will do everything in my power to keep you on this team, if that’s what you want. And if you need support with any step of the recovery process, then I, or anyone else on the team you’d be comfortable telling, will be there for you. It’s going to be okay.”

He’s imagined this conversation a million times, and this is the wrong version. This is the one that could have happened a year ago but never did, clawing its way out of the past and into the present, stiff and painful and out of time. “That’s not— that’s not it,” he begins, but Hotch shakes his head.

“Spencer, an addiction problem isn’t something to be ashamed of,” he says. “If Gideon was helping you before he left, then we can help you now. I’m only sorry we didn’t realise earlier.”

“You didn’t— Gideon didn’t—” It’s difficult to get the words out in the right order, every syllable a splinter of a shattering lie. He stops. Breathes in, as deep as he can manage, takes hold of the jagged pain of it and uses that to drag himself back to here and now and Hotch’s office. “I was addicted to Dilaudid because Hankel gave it to me in the cabin,” he says eventually. “He used it as a coping mechanism against his father’s abuse, and he gave it to me because he thought it would help. And I— it did. For a while. I don’t know how much of that Gideon knew, but I didn’t tell him anything. Nobody knows— knew.” He holds Hotch’s gaze for as long as he can. “Past tense,” he says, the words small and bare in the silence between them. “ _Was.”_

He doesn’t feel better for saying it, doesn’t feel relieved of some invisible burden. Hotch closes his eyes, presses one hand against the bridge of his nose, and sighs. Spencer feels small, and frightened, and so, so tired.

“How long?” is what Hotch asks in the end.

Spencer isn’t sure what he’s asking, but he says, “I’ve been clean since Gideon left,” and leaves Hotch to do the math for himself.

“Gideon— he said you were okay,” is the next non-question. “After the case. He said he was handling it.”

Spencer just shrugs at that. “He was struggling too,” he says. He’s not vain enough to think he was entirely behind Gideon’s decision, but he’s sure he was part of it, a damaged protégé, a final straw. “I don’t know how much he figured out, but it was— I don’t think anyone really wanted to see it.” He doesn’t mean it as an accusation, but Hotch flinches, just barely, and that’s enough. “Can you get the rest of the team in here?” he asks. “I don’t think I can do this more than once.”

—

_Tell all the truth but tell it slant –_

_—_

So he tells them all together, hunched over himself in an office that isn’t big enough to hold the whole team and all his secrets. It’s slow and stumbling, but nobody interrupts. He tells the truth as straight as he can, prying his own words out from the tangled mess of dreams and poetry until the air is thick with it all. And in the end he says, “I’m sorry,” voice hoarse and shaking from the weight of a world he’s just barely holding in place, and nobody says anything.

For a moment he wonders if they can see him properly now, that elevator-gleam ghost, if they can see it too now he’s laid out all the pieces, a year’s worth of fragments in the shape of a grave.

And then Morgan says “You’re _what_? No, Spencer,” and steps across the room to hug him, and the world shivers and settles back on new foundations. “Don’t you _dare_ — you don’t need to apologise for surviving. Do you understand me?” He pulls back and looks Spencer in the eye until he nods. 

They all have other things to say, a litany of plans and promises, but that’s the one that sticks, echoing in his head like his brain can’t figure out where to file it.

—

_Dear Mom,_

_I don’t think it’s ever going to be easy again, any of it, because it still feels like I’m sinking, so slowly I can’t even watch it happen. So slowly I can’t tell which way is up._

_~~The thing is, I didn’t know how~~ _

_~~I didn’t have~~ _

_Vocabulary isn’t the right word, exactly, but it’s something like that. I didn’t have the vocabulary for what happened to me— I could barely even remember it straight. I didn’t know how to file it, how to process it, so I took the drugs and someone else’s words and I made space for it there, and I pretended that made it all okay, that I could understand and control it that way. It sounds so simple when I put it like that, but it wasn’t. It could never be that simple._

_‘Twas just this time last year I died, and it was not death for I stood up, and the grave was finished but the spade remained in memory. Tell all the truth but tell it slant, except I don’t know how anymore. I don’t know which way’s up and I don’t know what the truth is anymore. Everything slipped away and it just kept slipping, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get it back._

_But I want to._

_I want to wake up and believe that I can get everything back._

_—_

Time passes.

It takes as long as it takes.

—

“Do any of these need posted?”

JJ is giving him a ride to this week’s support group meeting, and, as has become their little routine, she’s here an hour earlier than she needs to be, so they can chat and have coffee in his apartment, talk out the pre-session jitters. He’s been trying to do that, recently— take the initiative, reach out to people instead of ducking their invitations. So far this month he’s failed to find a coffee place that impresses Rossi, spent an afternoon in a natural history museum with Hotch and Jack, finally rewatched the _Doctor Who_ reboot with Penelope, and shown Emily his favourite local seafood restaurant. He works, and he reads, and he goes to therapy, and he spends time with his friends, and all of these are different things, and between them they manage to fill the empty space.

JJ is standing by his desk, and it takes him a moment to realise what she’s pointing at: the pile of loose papers on his desk, rows of his own handwriting not quite legible from where he’s standing. “They’re letters for your mom, right? We can do that on the way, if you like.”

“No, it’s okay,” he says. “I don’t— I write her a lot of letters, but I don’t post them all. She’d, uh, she’d worry too much if I told her everything, so sometimes I just….” He shrugs, sets one mug of coffee down on a coaster and crosses the room to hand the other one to her. “I just get it all out, and then send her the edited highlights. It’s easier that way.”

JJ frowns. He can see her glancing around the room again, a little more critically this time, and for a second he sees his apartment the way she sees it: the dust in the air, the steam from the coffee, the stacks of books, the anthology that’s lain open on his desk for months now. “Emily Dickinson, huh?” she says after a moment. “I haven’t read her since high school. Are you a fan?”

“Kind of,” he says. “It’s a project.” Project, projection. He wonders if she can hear the echo too, but she just nods.

_“Hope is the thing with feathers,_ right?” she asks.

“ _That perches in the soul,”_ he answers, a few seconds too late. _“And_ , uh _, sings the tune without the words—”_

_“And never stops at all,”_ JJ finishes. “My mom had that one on an embroidery sampler.” She sets her coffee down on the desk, looking down to find a clear space for it, and when she meets his gaze again, there are tears in her eyes. “This is what you did instead of talking to us?”

It isn’t a question, not really. “JJ, it’s okay—”

“No, it’s not.” Something in her voice is hollow. “There’s so _many_ of them, Spence, it’s not okay.”

At first he thinks she just means the poems, but then he realises she’s staring at the pile of letters. _Dear Mom,_ over and over and over. He’d meant to post them at first, or some of them; he can’t remember when he stopped meaning to.

“I’m so sorry,” JJ says. She’s crying now, tears smudging across her face faster than she can wipe them away. “Spence— I’m so sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” he asks, and she presses a hand over her mouth, inhales deeply through her nose. “No, JJ, why are you sorry? I was hiding this— everything— for _months_ , and I knew what the consequences of that would be. You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

“We’re your _friends_ , Spencer, and we should have been there when you needed it—”

“I never asked for help!” he says, louder than he means to. “I don’t understand—"

“You shouldn’t have had to even _ask_ ,” JJ says, voice cracking. “God, Spence, you shouldn’t have had to deal with any of it on your own.”

She hugs him them, tight and close like she’ll never let him go. He doesn’t know how to tell her he isn’t going anywhere.

“Eighteen sixty-two,” he says eventually.

“What?”

“In the year 1862, Emily Dickinson wrote a total of three hundred and sixty-six poems,” he tells her. “Sometimes it’s called her _annus mirabilis_. A miraculous year.”

There’s a long pause, and eventually JJ lets him go so she can squeeze his hand and say, “Okay, but what does that mean for _you_ , Spence?”

“I don’t know,” he says honestly. “But Morgan said— when I told everyone, Morgan said I shouldn’t apologise for surviving. And I hadn’t really thought of it like that before. I don’t know what I thought I was doing, but it wasn’t that.”

JJ shakes her head, but she lets go of his hand and picks up her coffee, takes a sip. “Okay,” she says again, very quietly.

Spencer reaches for the anthology, lets it fall closed in his hands with a _thump_. It’s heavier than he remembers, the weight of it an ache in his wrists, but it slots easily back into its place on the shelf, leaving a thin film of dust on his fingertips as it goes.

—

Diana Reid  
c/o Bennington Sanitarium

_Dear Mom,_

_Emily Dickinson wrote a lot about the grave. She sort of fixated on it, always thinking about how it was out there somewhere. She’s right, really. There is always a grave, the same way there are always bad cases, bad times. There’s been a lot of those recently, hitting the team one after another, but we’re getting through it, like we always do. This week we ended up at some bar Rossi recommended because of the fine whisky selection, except nobody paid attention to that. Instead it was JJ beating Morgan at darts and Garcia showing Emily pictures from before she joined the team and Hotch, watching us all and smiling when he thinks nobody’s looking._

_Hotch has been having a hard time. His marriage is— well, it’s not, and I didn’t notice that earlier. I think he was trying to hide it anyway, because he’s always been like that with the work-home life thing, but I also think that I just didn’t notice. I’ve been trying to do better at that. I noticed that Garcia stays late sometimes so she doesn’t have to leave the building on her own, so I’ve started walking her to the parking lot. I think it helps— at least, I think she’d tell me if it didn’t. JJ has a boyfriend now, a detective from New Orleans, and I hadn’t noticed that either, but I know now. I think she’s happy, and I’m happy for her._

_I sometimes wonder how the strangers in the bar see us, what it’s like to look at these people and to know nothing about them. I can’t imagine that at all. I don’t think I’d want to._

_We had a bad case in Texas a while back, ~~a kid, and I—~~ anyway, sometimes I forget how well Morgan knows me, because on the plane ride back he sat next to me and didn’t say anything for most of it, and then just as we were getting ready to land he said, “you’re doing good, Spencer. You’re doing real good.” And then he ruffled my hair, sort of like you do sometimes. I don’t know how, but it helped. I think friends are the people who do things to help when you don’t understand how to do it yourself. I was thinking about that recently because I went out for dinner with Emily (apparently she’s allergic to seafood, which is unfortunate because she let me pick the restaurant and I don’t know very many, but at least I know that now), and it turned out that she’d found out some information about an old case for me. It was just a detail that had been bothering me— I barely even remember asking her— but I’m glad it was her who told me. We’re a lot closer now— it took a while, but she’s good, Mom. She’s one of the really good ones. _

_And I’m doing good, like Morgan said. I’m trying to be more optimistic, because like Dickinson, I was thinking about the grave a lot too. But here’s the thing. I know it’s out there, but there has to be something else, too. Something else, in the great empty space of before the grave. I think that somewhre, out there in the dark, is an annus mirabilis. It might be a long time coming, but it’s out there, and I’ll believe in that for as long as it takes._

_Does that make any sense to you? Perhaps. You always know._

_I’ll come visit soon._

_Love always,_

_Spencer._

_—_

_P.S. A poem for you. Emily Dickinson, of course— I could do with something new to read, if you have any recommendations._

_I had no time to hate, because  
The grave would hinder me,  
And life was not so ample I  
Could finish enmity._

_Nor had I time to love; but since  
Some industry must be,  
This little toil of love, I thought  
Was large enough for me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was originally supposed to have a much bleaker ending, but you know what, it's been a hell of a year and I Just Couldn't Do It. thanks for welcoming me to the fandom, folks, and happy new year when it comes. I am @likefiction on tumblr, if you want to say hello and/or see sporadic mutterings about whatever I write next. [also, for the early readers- I am very tired and will check for typos in the next few days, I'm so sorry if this is nonsense lmao]


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